Games Workshop has officially announced Warhammer Age of Sigmar 4th Edition is on the way in Summer 2024. Here’s everything we know about the new edition, which was confirmed in GW’s Warhammer Preview livestream at the Adepticon 2024 convention on Wednesday March 20.
The new edition will feature a ground-up redesign of the rules for all the Age of Sigmar armies, a new 40k Combat Patrol-style quick play mode called Spearhead, and the long-foretold return of the fan favorite Skaven as this edition’s antagonist. We can expect new Age of Sigmar starter sets later this year, starting with the as-yet-unrevealed launch box set.
Here’s what we know so far about Age of Sigmar 4th edition:
Age of Sigmar 4th edition release date
Games Workshop has not provided an explicit Age of Sigmar 4th edition release date. It will release this Summar, and copyright information on a previewed Warscroll suggests it will be out in July.
This follows GW’s established pattern of releasing a new edition for its two first-tier miniature wargames every three years; it launched Age of Sigmar 3rd Edition with the Dominion box set in June 2021, and before that 2nd Edition came out in Summer 2018.
New Age of Sigmar 4th edition models
The stunning trailer for Age of Sigmar 4th edition, embedded above, hints at a whole bevy of new models that will debut with the edition. We have a separate article breaking down the Age of Sigmar 4th edition trailer – we think that it hints at ten units.
The models chosen to headline the new edition are – of course – the iconic, gleaming Stormcast Eternals (more specifically the newly opened Ruination Chamber) and – most excitingly – a gigantic invasion force of Skaven ratmen, replete with volatile war machines, crackling green magic, and many, many, many skittering rat warriors.
Games Workshop has already previewed several new kits:
- Updated Stormcast Eternals Liberators
- New Stormcast Eternals ruination chamber Reclusians
- Updated Skaven Clanrats
We don’t know much about the Ruination Chamber’s battlefield traits – but GW says they’re “the most grizzled veterans of the Stormcast, heroes of a thousand battles dating back to the Soul Wars”. It’s a double-down on AoS’s ongoing story theme of the magically ‘reforged’ Stormcast struggling with bitterness and existential turmoil due to their involuntary immortality.
It’s an exciting moment for Skaven fans, who’ve been waiting since the dawn of Age of Sigmar in 2015 for their beloved rodent forces to take center stage in GW’s premier fantasy wargame (even though real rats aren’t like Skaven at all, we’ll have you know).
It isn’t good news for all collectors. Games Workshop is retiring 82 kits for fourth edition, including Beasts of Chaos, Bonesplitterz Orruks, and the Stormcast Eternals’ Sacrosanct chamberSome of these are fairly recent miniatures: check out our analysis on what’s prompted the culls. Disappointed Beasts of Chaos fans have started a petition asking Games Workshop to rethink the decision.
Age of Sigmar 4th edition lore
A Warhammer Community article from March 21 puts a little more meat on the gnawed bones above, with the broad strokes of the new storyline. The Great Horned Rat – the chosen deity of the Skaven – has reportedly “struck a deal with Archaon himself, and ascended to his rightful place as a full fifth member of the Chaos pantheon”, according to WarCom.
As a result, the Skaven’s entire subterranean, sub-dimensional lair – a vast, ramshackle rat metropolis called Blight City – has exploded up through the ground in the Realm of Fire, Aqshy, in an event referred to as the “Vermindoom”.
A giant swathe of that realm – right on the doorstep of Hammerhal Aqshy, one of the main Cities of Sigmar – has been transformed from inert desert plain into corrupted, magic-infused cityscape overnight, and ceaseless hordes of Skaven are pouring out to besiege everything they can get their little claws on.
In the trailer, we see battlelines of Clanrats and Stormvermin; weapon teams firing Warplock Jezzail guns upwards into flying Stormcast attackers; mad-eyed rat pilots riding wheeled, clockwork Ratling Guns towards the foe, firing wildly as they roll; and hulking Rat Ogres belching magical flame in all directions from their hand-mounted Warpfire Throwers. It’s going to be glorious.
Age of Sigmar 4th edition rules
From the moment it was announced, Games Workshop confirmed that the Age of Sigmar 4th edition rules were a total overhaul. As a result, all the Age of Sigmar battletomes from third edition are being retired.
Games Workshop announced, in very general terms, seven major rules changes for fourth edition on March 25. So far, we’ve seen:
GW says the new fourth edition core rules have been “reforged for the first time since the first edition of the game”, placing a premium on “streamlining, accessibility, and modularity – but not at the expense of depth”. Stream presenters described it as rebuilding the game’s rules “from the ground up”.
We’re sensing strong parallels with the “simplified, not simple” language GW used to promote the massive changes it made in Warhammer 40k 10th edition, with references to “the Warhammer Age of Sigmar that you all know and love, with all the friction taken out”.
Most intriguingly, GW says it’s made targeted changes to Age of Sigmar’s most controversial rules element – the infamous AoS Double Turn, which refers to the fact players can, with one lucky dice roll, play two full turns in a row. Some people love it, many hate it.
GW says this feature has been “fine-tuned into a knife-edge decision with a clever twist to scoring” in 4th edition. What exactly that means, we’ll have to wait to find out.
Age of Sigmar Spearhead
Spearhead is a new one-hour-long game mode making use of pre-set, simplified army lists and rules tied to the models included in the Spearhead and Vanguard starter box sets for each faction.
While we won’t have exact details of how Spearhead games work until AoS 4th Edition drops in the Summer, we’d lay a rather large bet it will be a direct adaptation of the Warhammer 40k Combat Patrol mode, which is identical in its key features and description.
Plenty more news came from the Adepticon 2024 Warhammer Preview stream. We’ve also seen new Warhammer 40k Chaos Lords; a brand new Warhammer The Old World Dwarf King, and an upcoming Votann versus Genestealer Cults Kill Team box set.
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